Hoooooly hell...

So a lot happened. Obviously. And I'm only posting right now to avoid one more hour of the mountain of homework I have.

My Program Specialist job went well last semester and thus continued into the Summer. Finals also went well. I finished the semester with a perfect 4.0 for all my classes. *Beams with pride*  I was most proud of myself. It took a great deal of effort so you can see why I put things like the blog on the back-burner again. Seems to be a running theme...

In any case, summer didn't slow much since all my homework time was replaced with GRE studying. More on that later. So I went on working and studying.

I also made the big leap and finally moved into my own place!!

This was a decision I'd been thinking about since January, but didn't want to say anything in case I decided not to or couldn't. I was also considering rooming with my best friend, but due to other reasons we didn't choose that route. So, as it turns out, I was able to and decided that, while I enjoyed the boys' company, living with 4 other men was a bit trying sometimes and it was high time that I finally live on my own. Also, having a progressively more serious relationship with someone assisted in that decision a bit. Yes, Husky and I are still happy together. We celebrated our 1yr last month....and by that I mean we went climbing all day, came home and cooked a special dinner together, and watched anime while cuddling on the couch. There was no better way. <3
I have to say, that while it's tiny as shit and in a 100+ year old building, I absolutely love my apartment and am so happy and proud of myself for being able to do this. It's so nice to not have to worry about anyone else but myself now.

Despite working and studying, I did devote some more free time to things I enjoyed doing. The only problem was finding the time to fit it all in and the ability to focus long enough to do any of it. ADHD has started to become a major problem. It made last semester a huge struggle and things aren't looking too promising this semester either.
I thought about it over the summer and decided to get re-tested so I could apply for medication again. This wasn't an easy decision and it's taken a while to accept the reality that I just can't function on anything that requires me to focus, unless it's something I'm really passionate about. Sadly, while my studies in Psychology fascinate me, they're not what I'm most passionate about. Same goes for some day-to-day activities too. So in 2 weeks I'll be seeing the school psychiatrist and hopefully will receive something to fix my lack of focus.  The problem, we found (therapist and I), wasn't really a lack of motivation. Turns out I have that in spades. We're hoping the medication will take all that motivation and provide a means of focus to channel it and take care of the things I need to do as well as help me pay attention to some of the more daily things I do. I'd like to think that if I can focus I'd become the world's most productive ADHD person ever...

So on to the next big piece of news!

Not many people know this about me, but being a sculpture/plush artist, and also being passionate about making things in general, makes me very good at something else I've always loved doing. Baking! I finally found time this summer to get back into it and started consistently bringing in goodies to my coworkers. I even scored some really great equipment from my local Goodwill store.

Since I don't have any formal training I didn't expect it to progress any more than that.
This was until my office attended a catering showcase, put on by my college's culinary cafe. I had the chance to talk with the head chef there and his director. Of course I had a lot of questions and expressed my love for baking and decorating.  When asked, I explained that it helped having a 4yr Art degree and that while I hadn't gone to any baking program, I'd been baking since I was 9yrs (thanks Mom!). We chatted quite a bit about various techniques and recipes. I also showed off a few pictures of the more recent creations I'd made for my office and friends. Some of them were cool, decorated fondant cakes. The head chef gave me his contact and told me to follow up (they were getting busy at the event) and so later that day I did. Then the next day I received a call from his hiring department, offering me a position in his bakery. They had a start date and hours already lined up.

You read that right. I landed a job doing something I love, without having to apply or submit a resume. I of course put the breaks on and explained that I needed to speak with my current boss and put in a 2 weeks before agreeing. Since everyone in the office knew how much I liked to bake and sew it was an easy talk. My boss was thrilled for me and later that day I called back and accepted the position.

Since then things have been a bit roller-coasty, because the excitement didn't quite end there. I began the job 1 week before school started back up for the Fall. After the first day they adjusted my position to assisting in creating new recipes for the bakery, as well as upping my hours. Thus, any free time I've had has all gone to homework. I have 2 extremely difficult classes this semester, one of which has a lot riding on me passing with good grades. I also have a research assistant position in a new laboratory, more focused on the work I'm interested in. I basically wake up, go to lab, go to one of my 2 jobs, come home in the evening, do homework, and sleep. I repeat until the weekends where I see Husky.  My classes are online so I can work more freely, but I have the new problem of finding time for classes that I would have had if they were more "physical".

Even though I have no free time during the week I've never been happier. I wake up happy, bust my ass at work doing things I love, come home and ride that happiness through some homework, and then go to bed happy knowing I'll get to wake up and do it again the next day. Then on weekends I see the guy I love and do activities with him that I love, as well as sneak in some artwork time that, again, I love. It's the weirdest feeling in the world to be so insanely busy and yet still happy.

That was my Monday-Thursday routine, as far as the bakery was concerned. Fridays I did my second job, as well as Monday mornings I did it as well. Yes, I continued holding 2 jobs and went to school. I kept this up for a whole month and enjoyed every bit of it.

As I said, the excitement didn't stop at just getting a great job. After a month into it, which was last week, my supervisor (the Head Baker) was fired for incompetence. Believe me, it took talent to be that bad. I was constantly finding myself fixing her mistakes.
That same day I was called into the office and informed that I was being promoted to Head Baker, effective immediately, and would receive a substantial raise and about 40hrs a week.

'Holy shit' were not the only words that flew through my head that day. I was given the maroon chef coat, marking my promoted position, signed some paperwork to indicate my acknowledgment for my pay-raise, and was sent back to the bakery in a bit of shock. I got over it.

Everyone in the kitchen was really happy for me. All the cooks, student supervisors, other kitchen heads, and my bakery team all offered their congratulations and each echoed how they felt I was much better than the previous head. No pressure right? While my ego was totally stoked I was also pretty humbled. While I'd been hinting at thinking I could take the position I honestly didn't expect them to think I was good enough to take it in 1 month...especially when other people in the kitchen have taken some culinary classes.

So that was a week ago and it's been a bit of a learning curve. Being head came with extra challenges, one of which has been serious time management. This is like jumping through hoops of fire, for an ADHD person. It just doesn't happen without getting burnt a bit. Luckily one of my best bakers has been able to keep up when I need him and hasn't been afraid to tell me when I'm doing something wrong so that I can do better next time.

I've been slowly getting used to it and this week have actually been able to work ahead on a few days. Today we were slammed with catering orders, so I was grateful that some of our stuff had been prepped a day in advance, because stuff like this happens and I have mini heart attacks.

We did pull together and get it done. I was pretty proud of my team today. Lets hope I can keep up the pace. I'm thinking medication for my studies might also be of assistance here too. Especially in focusing on tasks at hand or keeping me from being distracted and burning myself on the damn oven one more time....that thing has it out for me, I swear.

Not dead yet

I'm not dead. I promise.

Midterms came, but then I only had 5 weeks left and Brain went "OMFFFG! SHHHHHT!" and it was pretty much balls to the wall to catch up and study and pass and...well...survive.
Of course right after school then I was balls to the wall busy because I moved (more on that later too) and had only 2 weeks to do it.
Now I've moved and I'm supposed to be studying for the GRE, which would be my excuse for lack of blogging, but where I live is very active and well, I'm being lazy and letting myself get distracted. Unmedicated ADHD is hard when everything around you is the equivalent of kittens and shiny things.

I'll try to get up a more appropriate post after my 4th of July vacation. :(

Priority

Just making a quick note that the blog....as well as practically every other fun hobby I have.....are all taking a back-burner to catching up in my studies. Will post pics for last post and a new post soon, hopefully.

Damn midterms...

Munchkins and hummus!

I'll add a pictures later. Tuesdays are long days for me so I don't get the opportunity to draw anything for my morning update the following day. Debating on how I'll handle it. For now it'll just be quick posts where I can add a quick pic later.

Apparently there is a new breed of cat called Munchkins. They have stubby legs and are unbelievably adorable.

Today was monthly "free hummus and pita bread" day. Kind of mad since I went way over on my eating yesterday so I'm making up for it today...which means no hummus for me. :(  Still trying to figure out how to make it work. Lol. Maybe if I skip my afternoon snack....

I'm getting increasingly more antsy for Friday. I'm supposed to turn in the crutches then and just go with the boot. Keeping my fingers crossed. It's been hard to not cheat, especially when I pass by the track on my way to the bikes. I want to, but I want to heal faster even more.

That's all for today. Will hopefully get pics up later today.

Freezin for....no reason

Looks like weekends might not get many updates, since I'm usually fairly busy doing stuff. I didn't update yesterday because I was busy trying to make use of my time with studying. I'm still behind so I'm just taking a quick break to write this up.

I can't wait till I'm caught up and can go back to all my projects and activities I had planned. There's tons of things I want to do with all my free time but homework has been taking priority. 

Husky came to see me this weekend. We tried to spend most of it studying but I unfortunately got caught up in a sewing project that was due to get done, for some of it. One break, however, was Saturday when I once again took part in the Polar Bear Plunge! Yes it was that time of year once again. I missed it last year with all the life happenings that were getting in the way so I was glad to do it again this year. Husky wasn't all that enthused though...

Don't get me wrong though. He was most supportive with helping me by keeping a hold on my warm, dry clothes and also getting video evidence.

I did indeed plunge with my crutches. I didn't really have much of a choice, though I was able to have one of the firemen hold them for me at the water's edge so I didn't have to actually jump in with them. I was also able to take off the boot beforehand. Everyone was pretty impressed/shocked, which made me giggle when the announcer looked at me and said,

He also mentioned I should get an award for "Hardest-core Plunger".  Lol.

Of course this all still doesn't really encompass what it's like to actually plunge. I mean, everyone tells you "It's so fucking cold, but so much fun!" All that's true and everything, but it's hard to describe what exactly goes on once you're in the water. You would think every part of your body would be prepared, but that's not really the case. Even though Brain sits there and says "ok I'm ready" and is prepped to command the other parts of the body, it really isn't and it's not until you jump in that you find this out. So I naturally drew a picture. :)

My legs were actually really happy, since I ice them every day (or should) at the doctor's instructions. This is probably not true for everyone else, but the other body organs I think are pretty similar. 

The rest of the weekend, as I said, was nice and quiet. Even though I'm still fairly stressed out from my every growing work load I'm not ticcing as much now, thanks to Husky. He has some pretty effective methods for helping me calm down. :)

I've started employing that as a form of imagery, to go in conjunction with my breathing exercises, whenever I need to calm my self down from tics. So far it's working really well. 

Unfortunately, the only problem with this weekend is I had a left over box of sweet things that had been given to me through work. They consisted of danishes, turnovers, cinnamon rolls, and muffins.......all things that are sadly my biggest food weakness, next to cheese obviously.

Of course I caved. I'm sure one terrible day isn't going to completely ruin my healthy eating habits. Gotta splurge sometimes.

God they were so good. Problem is, I'll be getting more this Friday......and my roommates think I'm starving myself, for some odd reason.... Well, I probably was when I originally started dieting to help lose all my weight. Once I started really getting into shape and becoming more active, however, I had to bring up the amount I ate anyways. Currently I'm following what my doctor has set for me, but that still doesn't stop my roommates from teasing me about when I wasn't.

Stressful days

I'm behind in school work :(  I need to catch up but it's never-ending. I wish time would stop for like, a week, or maybe if there were 30hrs in a day....but then I might use that time for projects.

Schoolwork isn't the only culprit. I'm getting increasingly annoyed with having to use the crutches and boot in the crappy winter. I, of course, miss running. I think maybe I've got cabin fever. There's not enough time in the day to do everything else I want to do. And did I mention school is kicking my ass?

Problem with getting stressed is it increases my tics. Normally I bare with it but now that I have a lot more muscle in my arms they're starting to actually hurt. One in particular is a large arm movement where my right arm jerks up and then back down against my body. When I was out of shape and not toned I could deal with it, but now it's super frequent so it's getting annoying. I drew a picture to kind of show how it looks...not the best.

My tics come and go, and some are more frequent at times than others. Currently it's the arm one and another one that involves my wrist jerking in ways it probably shouldn't. Luckily my wrist isn't as developed like my biceps so I can handle it.
The problem with all of this is doing tics more aggravates me....which kind of, sort of makes me tic more.... Lol. So it's this nasty "feeding off itself" domino effect. I'm glad I see Husky today. He likes to hug me tightly so my arms can't move and hit me, and then I calm down. :)

So yeah. Lots of stress. I'm hoping to work through it soon. Thank god spring break is only a month away. Then I'll have a whooooole week with Husky in Las Vegas, rock climbing in Red Rocks. :D!

Oh, also, I found out my female cat Sachi is a bit of a creeper....

Battle against Mother Nature

As promised here's a pic of my new fashion statement.

I accidentally slept in this morning. :(  Normally I get up at 6am every weekday so I can get to school and be guaranteed a free student parking spot. The extra time also enables me to get my workouts in and some homework. Thursdays are different though. I have my cleaning job with one of my clients today and somehow......somehow Brain knows that I don't have to be anywhere at 6am. So for the past 3 weeks or so I've gotten up at 6am except on Thursday, which is slightly annoying because I really would like that extra time for study.

In slightly better news, the snow storm did finally stop but it left a crap ton of snow behind. I suppose a bunch of snow is better to deal with than everything else. For a while it was getting fairly difficult just to go to and from campus.

I've resorted to putting a trash bag over my boot so that it doesn't get wet and damaged. I look kind of silly hobbling around with a trash bag over my leg.
I didn't have to be out long yesterday though. My other client for my cleaning job was yesterday so I was indoors most of the time. I got to polish silver spoons. It made my OCPD veeeeeery happy. :)

Not much else to report. Will probably take a bit to get used to little posts more often. I'm looking forward to the weekend since Husky comes here this time. We'll probably spend it working though. He has his thesis to finish up and I have homework to catch up on....sigh...

Make the snow stooooop!

Things have gotten a bit crazy. Sorry for the lack of posts. I've redone my schedule, in light of recent events so I'm going to try something different. Posting every day! Well, every weekday. I think trying to remember posting one larger post once a week plays into my ADHD too much and I get distracted by other things. I'll likely remember more if it's smaller posts throughout the week. This post will be a bit longer though, to catch everyone up on life's happenings.
As for what's been going on, I've been dealing with school and physical health, which unfortunately take priority when they go wrong. Let's start with physical health....

First the good news:

Now the bad news.....that image is 3 weeks old. The below image is what happened half a week after I achieved that:

So long story short, my shin splints got much worse. I eventually had to cut back on running until I finally caved and went to my doctor. She put me on crutches for my left leg, which was the worse of the two, and referred me to the campus orthopedic. A week later I saw him and after looking me over said I might have the beginnings of a stress fracture and that we will treat them as serious shin splints for the time being. He then referred me to the campus Sports Med physical therapist, and instructed me to do everything he said. Soooo another week later I see him (last Friday), and after being evaluated he insisted on taking a closer look at my leg and we found that I actually have 2 stress fractures in my left medial tibia. We determined the cause was I increased my training in too short a time period without realizing it. Hey, I don't have a trainer so I didn't know. :(  Also, I tend to push a bit harder depending on the music choice that's playing. Dragonforce is a favorite.

Soooo he fitted me with a boot to befriend my crutches (I'll have pics of that tomorrow), and now I hobble around on those. I'll have to obviously continue physical therapy. I was told to not be surprised if this takes up to 3months to get me back to running just 5mi. So...half of what I was doing. ...sigh. He said if I do everything right, don't cheat, and heal properly, my marathon won't be out of the equation and I might heal quicker.

Speaking of Dragonforce, I don't think Husky likes me listening to them while driving... I swear I'm a safe driver! They're just a really good band to listen to.... Lol.

Anyways, needless to say, the no running has hit me pretty hard. Not only do I really enjoy running but it has a really big significance for me as well. I was never a runner before. My lungs couldn't take the endurance, and so I favored sprinting or sport positions that only required short bursts of speed (defense in soccer, outfield in softball...etc). I could only accomplish becoming a runner because I worked so hard on my endurance and strength through the Insanity Cardio program...but I was only able to accomplish that because I was so fed up with where I was in my life after the divorce (and my brother gave me good motivation to do it too). Regardless of how long the distance, every time I complete a run I feel this overwhelming feeling of "I did this. I can really do anything." For me, running is almost a physical manifestation of the feelings that encompass everything around who I was before and how hard I worked to become the person I am now.
No other sport does that for me like running. So for the first week or so, of no running, I was pretty depressed and irritable. Husky and I had our first argument about it. I'd been dreading that "first argument" mainly because of past experiences. Usually there are only 2 reasons why you have an argument in a relationship: either there is no communication about something or one of you is being a complete idiot.
I wish I could say it was the former. I can handle those in spades. I also wish I could say it wasn't me being the idiot. Both of those would be lies though. Lol. He really was being concerned for me and I should have listened when he said I'd run myself into crutches if I didn't slow down and rest. Of course he knew I knew all this and was just being stubborn, so he wasn't really mad at all. In fact he just acted adorable and then I had no more reasons to be mad either. :)

I <3 him. How could you be mad after that?  :)

Anyways. That covers physical health. As for school, well...I'm behind in work. The crutches, while an amazing arm workout, wear me out every day because I am essentially lifting 140lbs (180lbs with my backpack) every second or so, while I walk. So I was exhausted every day for a while until I got used to it and adjusted my sleep times. Unfortunately I fell asleep in a few classes...

And I also just super ADHD distracted, especially this weekend for some reason. So rather than continue farther down the wrong road I've tried turning around and set up weekly meetings with my professor to get extra 1 on 1 time to go over the week's materials. Hopefully I can catch back up. I also revised my schedule to fit in more homework time, without compromising too much time for myself, time with Husky/friends, or time for fun things like this. :)

Other minor things that happened. Husky fixed my piano! YAY! So now I can start practicing again! I was going to sell it but once it was fixed I changed my mind. :P

I also rearranged my room to be more awesome. I do this from time to time. Make me feel happy and it's fun. I even made a ton of paper snowflakes and taped them from my ceiling. It's awesome.

I met a guy who's an Ultra Marathoner. He runs 100mi runs....through mountains and other shit. o_o  I was really impressed. Also, I wondered if there was something wrong with me when my only thoughts were "Awesome! I want to do that!"

Work has been great. I made my special trail mix for them and it was devoured....well all but about 1cup. And then someone ate all the M&M's and left the rest. Lol!

I found the culprit and we had a laugh. :)

I think the only last bit of news has to do with the title...

MAKE THE SNOW STOP PLEEEEAAAASE!!

My god it just keeps coming! Do you have any idea how hard it is to walk in a boot and crutches through blizzard conditions?!? Just when you think it's finally done for the winter, Mother Nature is like, "Herpderp! Lol!"

Resolutions!

I got a little crazy with my new header picture....lol. It does kind of fit the way I am, though, so I like it.

It's always sad when the holiday decorations come down, around this time. Though, if your holiday decorations just happen to also be normal decorations then it's still kind of nice. Like instead of spending the money on a tree, Husky offered his green rocket he build to serve as our tree this year. :)

Also around this time of year is when it usually snows. Though I've discovered that because of the lake effect in here, we don't really get that much snow as opposed to other places. Kind of frustrating.

Aside from winter fun I've been working on getting ready for the next semester. I got lazy with winter break and decided I didn't want to post anything but school starts next week, so I'll have a nice tight schedule once again.
To start with, I'll be working in a new second job! Yay! It's a campus job, working with the off campus housing department (Aka: NHO). I'm going to be one of 3 Project Managers in the department. I'm pretty thrilled, especially since I was worried that I bombed the interview. Glad I didn't. The job is great. I get evenings, weekends (usually), super flexibility around my classes and cleaning job, and everyone in the office is really nice and easy to work with. Couldn't get any luckier than that.

January is also the time when people decide on their New Year's resolutions. Of course I have some. I didn't get to last year's, which was to compete in the WI Tough Mudder so that's getting tacked on. My official resolution, though, is one I'm excited for. I've decided to train for a marathon, in October or November hopefully.

This of course means more strength training, to which my cats help out:

More strengthening of my lungs and heart, which doesn't make them too happy, but Brain wins this:

And of course...more running! I'll be posting my new pic with updated times as I train: